By John LeBlanc
Potentially going against the wishes of his boss, parent Nissan head Carlos Ghosn, the president of Infiniti is scaling back the luxury brand’s aggressive sales goals and putting a hold on the launch of future electric vehicles.
After less than one year at the helm of Nissan’s luxury brand, Infiniti head Johan de Nysschen is dialing back previous plans that had Infiniti’s global sales go from 170,000 in 2012 to 500,000 in 2017.
"I'm under absolutely no illusion — 500,000 cars by 2017 is an inordinately ambitious challenge," de Nysschen said in an interview. "We really do have to get our heads around how we can bring the brand in that direction."
According to the former Audi executive, that means focusing on high-volume vehicles — not niche-sellers like the planned-for Infiniti electric sedan that was due to go on-sale for 2014 (hinted at by the LE concept, seen above) nor the Emerge-E electric sports car, that debuted at the Geneva Motor Show in 2012, seen below.
Infiniti will eventually sell an electric vehicle of so some kind at some point. But the low sales numbers of such niche vehicles won’t help Infiniti’s sales goals in the near future. "We have a whole host of product priorities. We have to make very substantial investments now, and it's important that we expand our volume footprint quite quickly," added de Nysschen
Infiniti is investing in more global production in England and China, and developing several all-new volume models, including a premium compact that’s due in 2015 and potentially two new models that will sit above the current mid-size Infiniti M flagship sedan.
Apparently, the pair of new flagship Infinitis won’t arrive until 2020. They will be based on the same platform, but wear different body styles. Deviating from the standard German luxobarges, de Nysschen says the new four-door model “will be more Porsche Panamera-like than BMW 7 series-like," and the two-door, 2+2 version would “dial up the performance and design appeal."
Do you think Infiniti is wise in putting its money behind conventional, fossil-fueled vehicles and not EVs? Is this a missed opportunity to distinguish itself among other luxury brands? Or is de Nysschen’s decision simply a realization that EVs will only ever be low-volume cars?
Source:
Automotive News
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